October 17, 2025/Midnight
Erie, PA. — Since June 2025, Portland, Oregon has seen protests outside of the city’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility. The protests occurred as a result of the latest wave of ICE activity in major cities under the Trump administration.
According to CBS News, “Trump announced he would be deploying federal troops to Portland in response to the protests at the south waterfront ICE facility.” Later, his administration would state that “it would be placing 200 Oregon National Guard troops under federal control for a period of 60 days.”
In response, the city of Oregon filed a lawsuit. Afterwards, CBS reports, “Trump-appointed federal judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking the federalization and deployment of Oregon National Guard Troops, and a day later, the same judge blocked the deployment of any National Guard troops to Oregon from other states as the Pentagon said that it planned to send another 200 California National Guard troops to Portland.”
As the court case plays out, the national guard troops are prohibited from being deployed into Portland and they remain under federal control.
Upon seeing and hearing Trump’s comments on the city, where he has called the city a “warzone,” many Portland citizens deflected the comments. One person commented, “This does not help. It does not help at all. We don’t need this. And certainly, to spend our money on troops to come here for this… This is what our government is spending money on? It’s a shame, a crying shame. And I’m crying.”
According to AP, following the arrest of conservative influencer Nick Sortor, “Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the agency would send additional federal agents and the Justice Department was launching a civil rights investigation into the circumstances surrounding Sortor’s arrest, and whether the Portland Police Bureau engages in viewpoint discrimination.”
The Portland city leaders would go on to “adamantly deny any such discrimination and said they don’t need the National Guard to help handle the single block outside the ICE facility where the protests have occurred.” The Police Chief Bob Day would add, “The arrests we made, we made based upon probable cause, not based upon individuals. There is no political bias associated with our enforcement.”
As reports have grown, people have been taken to social media sites like TikTok to document the protests to help bring about more attention. One video show someone in an inflatable frog costume, now dubbed by the Internet as “The Portland Frog,” being pepper sprayed by an agent through the vent hole. The costume wearer would later go on to say that they had not noticed the spray at first and that they were mostly unaffected.
For now, the protests remain unwavering as the city braces for the possible arrival of National Guard troops.
